


Struggles Of Demons

by dragonshost



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Post-Avatar Arc (Fairy Tail)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonshost/pseuds/dragonshost
Summary: Holding onto his humanity is proving harder than Gray anticipated.
Relationships: Gray Fullbuster/Minerva Orland
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Struggles Of Demons

When he had accepted the mission to infiltrate Avatar, Gray had known that it would carry some measure of risk. Not just of discovery, but from his own newborn demon slayer magic. Keeping it active on the surface for an indefinite period of time was bound to have consequences. But he hadn't quite anticipated just what it would entail. Even now, Gray could feel it, gathering under his skin. It clung like oil, welling up from deep within his magical container - a contagion that couldn't be fully excised even if he could afford to do so. It was cold, too, but not in the way his ice magic was. It was a sick kind of chill, that settled into lungs like sediment. Like cold mud, trapping whatever lay within it.

There were benefits, of course. Beyond the selling of his new image as a monster to an organization full of such. It numbed him, like winter once had as a child. Which made it easier to endure some of the things he saw done at Avatar's hands. Made it easier to forget the wrongs committed by his own hands.

But seeing Lucy tortured in front of him?

He'd felt _nothing_.

Which scared him more than he cared to admit. She was his teammate. His friend. And he _hadn't cared_.

His apology to her had been two-pronged, but luckily she didn't seem to take note of that fact.

Gray had been as blasé as he could be about the side effects whenever asked. He hadn't said a word about it to Erza the whole time he'd had the magic activated, and now that he'd pushed it down as far as he could in his magical container he wasn't about to change that fact. But he could still feel it, like a storm on the horizon. Dark and rumbling and more than ready to unleash chaos and destruction. He'd assumed that it would quiet down with time, but the incident with Invel and his ice chains had only invigorated the magic. Stirring it up into a cold boiling tar ready to swallow him whole.

He needed help. Gray hated to admit it, but he did. But who would he ask? Erza? No way. That would be admitting that he'd lied to her about his condition, and Gray wasn't suicidal enough to do that. Natsu? Also no. Just... no. Lucy... he couldn't. Not after Avatar. She didn't need to know how close she'd really come to dying that day.

He considered asking Mirajane. She knew better than anyone about inner demons. But every time he went to ask her... something inside him stopped him, and the words wouldn't come out. He didn't want to be a burden to her. She had her family to take care of, after all. And this thing inside of him was incredibly dangerous.

But then he remembered someone else that fit that description. Someone else that struggled with maintaining their humanity. Someone else that had endured the process of turning into a monster.

It was a slim chance, barely a sliver if that. But Gray would take it.

It was high time he went and visited Sabertooth.

He and Minerva had a lot to talk about.


End file.
